


you go to sleep on your own and

by teamfreeawesome



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Anger, Character Study, Coming Out, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Happy Ending, Hate Sex, Internalised Homophobia, Non-Linear Narrative, Porn with Feelings, Queer Themes, Rule 63, Unhealthy Relationships, Wall Sex, Women in the NHL, messy relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 07:59:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14351274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamfreeawesome/pseuds/teamfreeawesome
Summary: Dawn won’t crest the horizon for a good few hours. The sky is dark overhead, and she thinks about coffee and hockey and the way it might feel to have Claude’s mouth against her skin.





	you go to sleep on your own and

**Author's Note:**

> So, I found this in my documents, and I'd completely forgotten about it. I started in 2015 and then left all 4k of it to languish in my documents for three years. All I've done is give it a really quick edit (and add an ending) so it's very definitely vintage teamfreeawesome fic with all of the over the top EMOTIONS that entails. 
> 
> I've never written rule 63 before, but when I was writing this I had just come out, and I remember just wanting to write women who like women. All the women who like women. And I was super into Claude/Sid at the time, so this happened. It's really a really messy relationship, as you'd expect for the whole Claude/Sid enemies to lovers thing, so.
> 
> Thank you to the lovely, lovely Spinel for reading this and telling me it was still good, despite it being, what feels like, eighty billion years old. 
> 
> Title from 'Sleepsong' by Bastille. 
> 
> disclaimer: no harm was intended by the writing of this. i don't, in any way, equate these fictional characters to their real-life counterparts.

Sid met Claude when she had just turned eighteen. She was softer, at eighteen. Not quite moulded into herself yet. A little unsure. Everything felt closer to the surface, seething under her skin in a way that felt almost painful.

At eighteen, Sid felt everything like lightning under her skin. She loved hockey ferociously. Loved her family intensely. Hated Claude passionately. It was a boiling, volcanic kind of hatred, each second that she had to share air with Claude a hot, bright, lightning-strike of dislike that flared up the line of her spine.

Sid hated Claude like broken teeth caught on the back of her tongue. Hated her like the jagged edge of a nail being dragged down the rise and fall of her ribcage. Sid hated her so overwhelmingly that there was never really space under the pounding, rushing sound of her heartbeat for anything else.

 

//

 

“Good game,” Sid says, and she doesn’t mean a word of it.

She grips Claude’s hand hard, squeezing tight enough to hopefully crush bones, and bares her teeth in something that isn’t even a little bit close to a smile. She’s never felt like this about anyone before. Anger is expected in a hockey environment, but it’s usually the kind of anger that fuels a game. You channel the anger; play hard, shake your opponent’s hand in the line-up, and forget about it again. Sometimes, it might turn into a rivalry, but even then –

It’s only ever on the ice. This time, though, it feels all consuming. Like there’s something eating at Sid’s insides, shaky and gritty and overpowering. Her heart feels like it’s permanently beating faster, her hands clammy as she grits her jaw. She’s so angry that it almost feels hard to breathe. It feels like it’s climbing up her throat and clawing its way out. She hates Claude like she’s never hated a person before. Like her guts are screaming, and all Sid wants to do is punch Claude in her smug face.

Claude isn’t nice. Claude hasn’t ever been nice. Sid feels like she’s trapped where she stands, not sure whether she wants to puke or punch something. The only closure that would work from this shit-show of a relationship would be to snatch any chance of the Stanley Cup from Claude’s grubby paws, and then rub it in her fucking face. If Sid wins the cup, she’s going to tag Claude in every fucking photo she takes – and she’s going to make sure that there’s a goddamn million of them.

So, of course, she meets Claude in the hallway after the game. They’re both still kind of sweaty. No one takes a real shower after a game. It’s more of a wash-the-worst-off kind of rinse. Claude looks so fucking smug, grinning wide enough that Sid can see the gap in her teeth, and it’s like someone has pressed a button inside Sid, her whole body going hot and tight with rage.

“You’re a fucking piece of shit, Giroux,” Sid hisses, before she’s even had time to think about it. It just rips out of her mouth and smacks Claude in the face like damp paper. Claude barely seems to even register it.

“So?” She says. “What are you going to do about it, then?”

Claude stands there, tall, proud, her chin tilted up and her eyes flashing, and Sid can’t breathe around how much she wants to scream. But, Sid, even at twenty, is intensely aware of how her every action reflects on her; aware of every motion, every twitch of her mouth, and how it represents her. So, she does nothing. Glares, spins on her heel, her shoulders hunched up by her ears as Claude laughs mockingly at her retreating back.

“I thought so,” Claude calls down the hall after her, and Sid’s gut clenches with something she can’t name, sickening and heavy in the pit of her belly.

 

//

 

Hating Claude isn’t something that Sid had planned on focusing on. It doesn’t matter, though. Something dark under her ribs has latched on, and Sid can’t let go.

Each game brings her closer to Claude, and in the locker room beforehand, there’s almost something anticipatory building. She sits, gear on, and her heart beats hard. Her cheeks feel flushed. She plays hard, brings it home, and gets off in the bathroom with the desperate image of Claude coming burnt into her retinas.

It’s like Claude has lit a match under her skin. It’s hot, wild and intense, and all Sid can do is try to breathe through the burn. She feels it in her chest, hot and bright and overwhelming. And – Sid knows that none of this is really Claude’s fault, but pinning the blame on herself is slippery; difficult.

She remembers meeting Claude, both fresh-faced and barely drafted, and Claude’s eyes had been so bright with awe. Her cheeks had been flushed. Sid had wanted to touch her hair.

 

//

 

Birthdays come and go, and Sid grows into herself. Her jaw sharpens and her bones get more fragile. A lockout, a concussion, a second lockout, and Sid is older. Stronger. Wearier. She smiles more. Means it less. Kisses Claude and laughs. Kisses Claude and cries. Grows some more. Grows and grows and grows, under the skin too, until she’s spent so long with her hands tangled in the lines of Claude’s life that it’s impossible not to know every inch of her.

It’s impossible not to know the way that Claude likes her, voice soft as she whispers into the curve of Sid’s neck. Her mouth twists around a protein shake, and Sid can read her like a book. Impossible to miss the way that Claude’s freckles turn golden under the sun. Impossible to ignore the way that she likes Claude back, heart tender and hands trembling.

(She wakes up at twenty-seven, Claude’s back a long stretch of sun-warmed skin next to her in bed, and realises that maybe she loves her).

 

//

 

Sid used to think that pursuit was a funny word. It fitted awkwardly in the mouth, catching at the edge of her lips and dragging weirdly over her tongue. Pursuit wasn’t consensual. It was a threat of a word. Pursuit was found in the sweat of men who jeered at her from the stands. Found in the eyes of men who leant too far into her space, and in the hands of men who touched when they did not have permission.

As a realisation, about pursuit maybe, but about the way men orbited her, and her reaction to that, it arrived late. It was a realisation that needed to be dragged up from the depths of her body, dug out from under the fat of her womb where nobody could find it to pry it out. Not even herself. It was a tugging, painful _yank_ of a discovery, and it burnt itself into the pits of her eyes; into the crease of her knees, and she felt like it was branded so clearly onto her skin that anybody would be able to read the words she wasn’t able to reveal.

It took her years to pull it out far enough to fully grasp the entirety of what it meant for her. She spent years muddled under a heavy weight that tasted like uncertainty and fear; that tasted like confusion, and a lack of belief in her own knowledge of herself. She played hockey, fought and fought for the recognition she deserved, cried at home as her body curled in around it’s bruises, and she _wins_. Takes the captaincy, laughs with Geno when he jokes, but inside her body feels like it’s burning.

The team go out clubbing, to a bar, anywhere, and men grasp at her with sweaty palms. They grin and leer, and sometimes they’re shy. Sweet. They come up to her and stumble, a tumble of something nervous dripping from their mouths, and she doesn’t want to understand why she doesn’t want them. She _wants_ to want them, even as she also doesn’t. She can’t –

She doesn’t understand why her mind and her mouth pull her in their direction, for soft kisses in darkened rooms that she does not want, even as her heart folds, heavy and fearful in her chest. She thinks that maybe she is mistaking anxiety for attraction, and she is allowing fear to feel like butterflies in her belly. She’s afraid of nothing, not broken bones nor losses, but she is afraid of this. Of herself.

Her mother takes it okay, when Sid finally finds her voice. She likes to say that she understands, and for the given meaning of understanding, perhaps it is true that she does. But there is a difference between empathising and understanding, truly, the core of that it is to be different, and her mother has never had to know. In the small, aching gaps in their conversations, her words crumple into the void, because there are some things an explanation cannot bridge.

Sid does not tell her father.

She is twenty-five, before it finally feels firm under her skin, and she is twenty-five when she finally allows herself to understand how lonely she is.

 

//

 

“Why you let her under your skin?” Geno asks, one arm slung companionably over Sid’s shoulder. “She know you react bad.”

Sid can feel her hair sticking to the back of her neck, sweat tacky over her skin. She’s breathing hard, a momentary pause between periods, and she can’t seem to get a grip on her fury. Flower is stretching in the corner, but he looks up and grins at Geno’s words.

“Sid just can’t admit that she wants in Giroux’s pants,” he says, winking.

“Fuck you, I do not,” Sid spits.

Her heart feels like it’s pounding in her ears, a fresh layer of sweat beading over her skin as she breathes shallowly. Flower looks relaxed, and next to her, Geno’s face is determined, but Sid can feel all of her muscles tensing, the line of her back going from mid-game-prepared to fragile and tense. Flower seems to notice the tension, smile slowly fading from his face, until he’s looking at her seriously, something like understanding slipping into his eyes.

The thing is, she doesn’t want Claude. She doesn’t want sex with Claude, or to know what her mouth tastes like pressed to Sid’s own. Doesn’t want to feel Claude’s warm body against her own, except –

Except that she does want Claude. She wants to fuck her and bite her and kiss her. She wants to lick her open and watch her fall apart.

“It’s okay if you do, you know. In general, I mean, not just with Giroux.”

And Sid knows this; has taught herself this. She’s spent years writing it into the ice beneath her blades; carving it into her skin and burning it into her life until she can carry herself with all the pride she deserves, but hearing this –

Sometimes, having another voice contest the cacophony of internal doubt, a voice that is external and supportive, is exactly what she needs.

Sid blinks at him. Her heart is still pounding a mile a minute, but Geno’s arm is still around her shoulders, and Flower is still looking at her, and in this moment, maybe she can allow herself to breathe. Smile. Feel accepted.

“I know,” she says, and they know her well enough by now to take that as the thanks that it is.

 

//

 

When Sid was younger, there was a train that always passed her house just as the sun set, the pink-dipped dusk reflecting off the metal as it flew towards the city. She never caught more than just the barest glimpse of its passengers, just flickering mouths and eyes and hands that seemed to smear against the glass as the train sped by.

Sid used to wonder what it would be like, to ride that train until no one knew her name. She imagined a life in snapshots; a moment, and she was in her kitchen, elbow deep in dough as someone laughed deeper into the house. A flash, and she’s in her garden, feet against the dirt, and there’s someone’s arm pressed to hers. A roar, and the crowd stands, a wall of sound as Sid lifts the Stanley Cup.

Her whole life lay planned out before her, hockey everything she wanted, but sometimes, at night, in the dark, when the frost was just beginning to curl into the grass, Sid wondered if maybe there was something else she wanted more.

 

//

 

A face-off, and Claude’s chewing on her mouth guard. Sid can feel Geno on the ice, at her back and ready. She feels steady, adrenalin making her heart kick up a beat, but she’s confident. She likes to win.

This close, she can see the freckles across Claude’s nose and the dark circles under her eyes. Sid can almost taste the desperation; knows that she’ll win this puck by tooth and claw; that Claude won’t give it up easily.

Sid grins, Claude glares, the puck drops, and Sid’s stick is faster; Sid is faster. She steals the puck out from under Claude and laughs.

Later, much later, she hears about Claude’s wrists. She thinks back to that moment, the intensity, the adrenalin, but she hadn’t been angry. If Claude’s wrists are fucked, then they’re fucked – and if it’s her fault, then. Okay. But she doesn’t think it is. She’s a little older now. A little less caught up in all the ways that Claude is just nipping at her heels. She hates the Flyers, but thinks Claude is just… Claude. Irritating and infuriating, but Claude.

“You do?” Geno asks her, eyes big like a cow.

“Don’t care,” Sid says, and it’s almost the truth. “Not on purpose.”

Geno grins, and there’s something sharp in the way her teeth flash.

 

//

 

They break up once. After Sid wins the cup twice in a row. Claude has never been petty, but Sid knows Claude; knows how this must feel for her. The way her heart is burning. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

She thinks it might last forever.

They haven’t spoken in so long that Sid wouldn’t even know how to go about mending things. Flower says that it takes two to tango, and that Sid shouldn’t be so hard on herself, but Sid feels –

She feels like a hollowed-out shell of a person, some days. She dreams that she’s kissing Claude and wakes up sweating.

Claude had soft hands. They were gentle. She had hard tendons, hard bones, and she used to kiss Sid like she was special. Used to hover over Sid, her hair a fiery curtain. Used to touch Sid like she was important, not because she was _Sidney Crosby_ , but because she was Sid.

So, Sid’s kind of a mess. She goes out. Knocks back a drink or five, kisses a bunch of people and vomits in a back alley while Geno pats her back and makes soothing noises. She kisses one girl and her mouth tastes like strangers, beer and every bad decision that Sid has ever made. Sid takes her home.

“Did you love her?” The woman asks.

She has freckles. Blonde hair. Sid thinks she tastes like strawberries.

“No,” Sid lies, mouth sticky with vodka. “No.”

She vomits on her kitchen floor. The woman leaves. Sid doesn’t cry. Instead she picks herself up off the tile and heads back out.

“Dance with me,” she says.

She dances and dances, drags a woman into the bathroom where she eats her out, and goes home to Geno and Jeffrey. Curls up on the bed and laughs when Geno’s cat scratches her hands.

 

//

 

The next time they play after the wrist-slashing debacle, Sid is ready. It’s not long into Sid’s first shift before the anger rises again, hot and bitter like bile. Claude is at her heels, nipping and pushing and chirping until Sid shoves at her, snarl curling at her lips.

“Fuck off,” she says, sweat dripping into her eyes. “Get out of my face.”

It doesn’t make a difference though. Claude keeps smirking at her, stealing the puck from Sid with a grin and a wink before checking her like she thinks Sid is just a minor annoyance.

After the game, Sid can’t sit still. Her heart is beating so loud in her ears. The locker room is noisy, but she can’t focus. Her anger should have been lost to the ice; lost to the burn of muscles working at the sting of sweat as it dripped into her eyes. Instead it feels like it’s still building under her skin. She wants to yank on the ends of Claude’s hair. Wants to scrape her nails hard over Claude’s skin until Claude is moaning beneath her.

So, of course, Claude is waiting for her.

“Fuck. You.” Sid hisses instantly, shoving at Claude with both hands.

Claude looks up at Sid, shocked and breathing hard, and suddenly they’re surging towards each other, hands grappling at wrists and hips and tangling in hair. Mouths clashing, they share harsh, biting kisses. Sid stomach feels tight with arousal, and she can’t help the soft moan that escapes. Claude’s hands twist into her hair in response, pulling Sid’s head to the side. She bites bruising kisses down the length of Sid’s neck, the almost-pain of it making Sid’s cunt clench.

Claude comes back to Sid’s mouth, and it’s –

It’s tongues and teeth clashing, while hot, hot hands scrabble to find bare skin to lie against. Groaning into Claude’s mouth, sweat building at the nape of her neck, Sid scrapes her nails over Claude’s hips. She can feel Claude’s thighs trembling, the heat and strength of her making Sid moan. She feels hot and loose and wet, something shivery and warm sliding down her spine and making her toes curl. Her blood is rushing in her ears, and she can’t see or taste anything but Claude.

It feels like her attention is condensed down to the feel of Claude’s hands, soft against Sid’s skin as they worm their way under her shirt. Lifting her slightly, the muscles in her arms cording, Claude pushes Sid tight against her body. She knocks Sid’s leg to the side and pushes a knee between Sid’s, her thigh pressing firmly against the heat of Claude’s cunt. Hands pressed against the wall, Sid struggles to keep her toes against the carpet as she rubs up against Claude’s thigh, both their hips rolling as Sid pants desperately into Claude’s neck.

The hallway fills with moans as they rub against each other. It’s kind of angry and a little rough, and so fucking good. Claude’s hands are tangled in Sid’s hair, pulling, and Sid’s hips twist, the not-quite-enough friction making her skin hot and her cunt clench. She feels like she’s spiralling, shivery and too warm. Her thighs feel tight, sparks of pleasure rolling under her skin and disappearing again as she pants into Claude’s skin. Sid’s breath is coming too fast, and despite Claude’s thigh not really being enough to get her off, she’s so worked up that arousal is only coiling tighter and tighter in her belly, fingers scrabbling at Claude’s shoulders desperately as she approaches the edge.

“You gonna come?” Claude asks, and –

Fuck, that’s enough that push Sid over the edge, cunt clenching like a vice, a strangled sort of noise falling from her mouth as she shakes. Laughing, hand clenching even tighter in Sid’s hair, Claude gets her free hand between them, shoves it down and her pants, and brings herself off, mouth open and gasping as she shudders.

Bodies slumped against each other, Sid’s feet firmly against the ground again, Sid pants into Claude’s neck, her nose brushing against sweat-slick skin.

 

//

 

Sid doesn’t like to think about the concussion. It was too much time in her head, alone with her thoughts.

White noise ran under her skin on nights that stretched like this. Her bones buzzed, heart pulsing just over the taut skin of her eardrums, and she blinked. Time stretched, pulling and twisting around her. White noise, pinpricks of pain coalescing under her skin, and she felt caught, each breath half a second out of time with the rest of the world.

The lights overhead flood the room with a stark, ugly light that feels abrasive against the dry heaviness of her eyeballs. It feels like sandpaper against stone, and they’re barely on at all.

Dawn won’t crest the horizon for a good few hours. The sky is dark overhead, and she thinks about coffee and hockey and the way it might feel to have Claude’s mouth against her skin.

 

//

 

Worlds, and they go out to dinner as a team. Sid makes sure she’s sat next to Claude. She almost elbows Segs in the face to get in there before him, and she squeezes in tight next to Claude. She can feel Claude’s warm thigh pressed against her own. Her forearm is touching Sid’s, skin to skin, and Sid can’t seem to focus on anything but the way it feels to have Claude this close.

She looks gorgeous. Terrible and stunning. Her face transforms when she laughs, and Sid can’t handle it. She wants to trace the lines that crinkle at the corners of Claude’s eyes when she smiles. Wants to kiss her softly against cool sheets, and she wants to count the freckles dotted over Claude’s nose. She wants to tangle her fingers with Claude’s and bring their hands up to her mouth so she can kiss every digit. She wants to have Claude naked, her strong thighs spread out for Sid.

“You okay?” Claude asks, her knee nudging Sid’s under the table.

“Yeah,” Sid says.

Claude’s looking at her, and she looks so fond. Her hair is backlit from the sun, and it looks like a fiery halo. Sid wants to kiss every inch of her. Wants to worship her.

“I’m glad we got to play together,” Claude says quietly. She smiles, and it’s so soft. Just for Sid. “It’s been great.”

“It’s been so great,” Sid says. “I really like you, you know.”

Claude’s whole face brightens, and Sid thinks that maybe –

Maybe she didn’t know.

 

//

 

Geno stalks into the locker room with a piece of paper clutched in one hand. She looks furious, her mouth curled into a snarl. She slaps the paper against her locker with a thump, letting it flutter to the floor uselessly when she takes her hand away. She looks around the locker room, making eye contact with each player pointedly, before she points at one of them and beckons menacingly.

“What’s going on, G?” Sid asks cautiously.

“You don’t worry, Sid,” Geno says, dangerously quiet. “I just need to have conversation with all team about this… article.”

“Uh…” Sid starts. “Why have you singled out Olli?”

“Not singled out,” Geno states. “Will have talk with _all_ of team.”

“Maybe you should just tell us all?”

“Deadspin say they have _source_ ,” Geno starts, pausing to glare around the room. “That tell them you in relationship with Claude Giroux.” She takes a deep breath. “Who been saying lies?”

“Oh, well.” Sid says, slightly flustered. “I am? In a relationship with Giroux?”

There’s a pause, and then the locker room explodes with noise.

 

//

 

The first dance appears out of nowhere, and it takes Geno physically pushing Sid out of her seat to get her there. Claude offers a hand, grinning. She looks so beautiful, slightly flushed from a combination of the warm room and alcohol.

“Ready?” Claude asks.

“Ready,” Sid says.

Claude pulls Sid close as the music starts, and Sid hopes she can’t feel the way Sid’s hands are trembling.

“This has been great, you know,” Claude says, soft, into the shell of Sid’s ear. It feels intimate, her whole body pressed up against Claude’s, one warm hand at Sid’s waist as they sway across the floor.

“It really has,” Sid says.

Claude sways them across the dance floor, Sid content to follow, cradled in Claude’s arms. It’s perfect. Claude smells amazing, like new clothes and perfume and a hint of sweat. It’s comfortable, this relationship, in a way that Sid never expected it to be.

The song ends, and they pull apart. Sid thinks it’s silly to feel the loss this much. She’s married to this woman. After that, though, the music is faster. Sillier. They dance with their families, getting sweatier and drunker and more exuberant as time goes by.

The reception doesn’t actually finish until three, Sid later finds out, but they sneak out way before that.

**Author's Note:**

> Please do let me know if you feel this needs more tags!!! 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the vintage teamfreeawesome experience! Keep your eyes peeled for my next, new, project.... Auston/Mitch fic probably...


End file.
